Its popularity can be seen in its longevity – not only did it have an extensive readership, but was printed for over two years. It ran from February 1916 until just after the war had ended. There were even two editions printed after the war under the name of “The Better Times”. Unlike the regular weekly instalments of Punch, the production of The Wipers Times depended on the editors being in reserve with an area where they could set up their printing press. The press had been salvaged from the ruins of Ypres by the Sherwood Foresters, and although the paper was not officially sanctioned by the B.E.F., it was additionally circulated around most of the Western Front.’

On Christmas afternoon we used to have tea with the chaplain, a vast man called Basil James. He could hit a cricket ball clear over the Wall, but was so fat that he required someone to run between the wickets for him. My father remembered the Reverend James pondering his memories of the first world war and sorrowfully recounting how, while laying telephone lines in no-man’s-land, he had had to kill a German soldier with a telephone headset.

‘The hospital’s closest fellow institutions are Wellington College and the Military Academy at Sandhurst, and it used to be said that a gentleman could be educated at Wellington, become an officer at Sandhurst, and end his days in Broadmoor, without travelling more than a mile or two in any direction’